SILENCE IS THE ENEMY

- I'm starting to import posts from my older blog to here so I can free up that blog for another project, so, you'll probably see, like, seven posts from me today.

- Lost continued with great episodes this week as "Some Like It Hoth" was dramatic, enlightening and, surprisingly, quite funny. The show can tend to get bogged down in a sort of stone-faced seriousness about itself and it's nice to see a bit of humour creep in now and then. Lest we forget, Lost is a show about an island filled with polar bears and smoke monsters that travels through time when a wheel is turned, and that's just a touch absurd. There were a couple small things that annoyed me; mostly, I really think, as I've said before, that every character having daddy issues sort of dilutes the concept and did the writers really feel the need to give them to Miles too? Still, that's a small thing and the classic lines alone ("Ewoks suck, dude", "You owe me a fish taco") were enough to push this one over the edge for me. Also, the final twist was mighty intriguing and makes me hate that we have to wait two weeks for a new episode. I'm not sure if I'll watch that recap/special thingy that's on next week, I may as well, but, who knows.

- So, the new Green Day single is out and it's decent but nothing special. I'm actually very excited for 21st Century Breakdown, if only because the band has been citing Bruce Springsteen as an influence in interviews about the album (and calling it a 21st century Born To Run, which, well, we'll see) and anytime a band does that I'm instantly interested. However, "Know Your Enemy" is basically a stripped-down and punked-up AC/DC tune with big, stomping power chords and a shout-along chorus. As that, it's okay and it does get stuck in your head easily (I predict I'll be humming it under my breath without even realizing it within a few days) and the hammering drums anchor the tune well. Still, the things I like most about the song are the incidental little details like how Armstrong does that little, highly-accented, "right!" after singing the title or the "way-oh-way" background vocals in the verse. Lyrically, too, it feels kind-of flat and listless with its psudo-punk sloganeering ("KNOW YOUR ENEMY", "VIOLENCE IS AN ENERGY", etc.) providing none of the story-telling that the band is capable of, though, to be fair, punk was always more about screaming about authority figures than offering coherent political platforms or depth-filled poetry, so I can't be too angry about it. I feel like I should be disappointed given what the band has promised but then I remember that the first single from American Idiot was the title-track which was also a quick blast of hooky, punky energy (with equally obvious and polemic lyrics) that didn't belie what was actually going on with that album. Now, "American Idiot" is a better song than "Know Your Enemy" (the earlier song has a bit more live-wire energy to it and the latter feels a bit too cleanly-produced and squared-off) but I predict that they'll end up serving the same function: A quick blast of typical Green Day stuff to re-introduce them to the public (remember, it's been 5 years since American Idiot, though it's somewhat misleading to say that as the band has kept in the public eye via side-projects and non-album singles) and prepare radio for the later, less typical, singles. Overall, the song hasn't affected my anticipation for the album one way or the other, though it did remind me that it's coming soon and, in that sense, it's performed its function. So, here's hoping that the whole album will follow through on the band's promises.